After so many years of neglect, water appears ready to emerge as a cutting-edge health food. Perhaps it’s the fault of Gatorade, that Technicolor concoction of salt, sugar, and water people guzzle to “replenish their electrolytes.” The Gatorade inventors, some dweeby physiologists, were just trying to keep football players from collapsing in the Florida heat. They could not have foreseen what was to transpire in the decades ahead as the concept of the “sports drink” took hold, and then, more bizarrely yet, water itself became a symbol of health and status.

With each iteration, beginning with bottled waters derived from glaciers (tres European) to the recent “enhanced water,” H2O has moved closer to the first-class cabin. But the latest version is a real head-scratcher: ionized, alkalinized water. Companies such as Chanson, Kangen, and many others are in the game to sell you a gizmo for $1,000 (or $2,000 or $3,000) to run your tap water through. The devices contain electrodes that purport to realign your water, split off some hydrogen atoms along the way, and rid it of various pesky problems so that it will taste better and be healthier and your arthritis will go away. In a week. Maybe two.

In every way, water, at least American water, is a strange target for an expensive course in self-improvement. The number of Americans sickened by tap water, leaving aside the flood-induced Milwaukee cryptosporidiosis outbreak of 1993, is minuscule. Top-notch municipal plumbing remains perhaps our greatest achievement. We confront many ubiquitous environmental risks daily, but water is not among them. It is safe and unobjectionable. Plus it’s cheap—and yet...

I have a client that I used to meet with once a month during the dinner hour. Had to quit because we couldn’t agree on a restaurant which had exactly the kind of food she thought she needed to survive. She will not eat anything that is not only organically grown but gluten, carbohydrate, fat, salt, sodium, sugar, and who knows what else free. Drank bottled water without ice cubes or lemon because she wasn’t sure how/where the lemon had been grown, whether it had been properly washed and, of course, the ice cubes were probably made with water which wasn’t filtered.

People like her just wear me out.

15
posted on 03/23/2013 9:45:38 PM PDT
by Grams A
(The Sun will rise in the East in the morning and God is still on his throne.)

As my dear Mother used to say, some people have too much time on their hands.

I never smoked, drank or did drugs. I was diagnosed with Stage Three Leukemia at age 52. I did Chemo, was in remission for a little over two years, then back to Chemo. My numbers are slipping again after four years, so we’ll see.

My Father, an Alcoholic for over 60 years, was diagnosed with Stage Four Lymphoma at age 82. He went through Chemo over seven years ago. Just had a CT Scan and he is as clean as a whistle, just turning 90 last Monday. For all intents an purposes, he is cured of the Disease.

Life isn’t fair, and living Life in fear of eating or drinking something that “may” be bad for you is the dumbest waste of time I can think of. That and Voting for Obama.

Everyone I ever knew that I (lovingly) considered Health Nuts have never lived to a ripe old age like my Father. It’s just the way it is, you never know when the Fat Lady will sing. When she does, you’ll be the first to know, or not.

It blew my mind when I saw that my daughter-in-law in Miami had purchased 48 small bottles of water for hurricane emergencies. They were using gallons of milk on a regular basis. I always keep six gallons of cleaned refilled milk containers full of water for storms and water main breaks. Doesn’t cost more than a few cents for the water itself.

Quite a long read at the link. I get very sick from gluten exposure. The initial reaction (minutes) is a gurgling in my lungs that initiates throat clearing, gagging and coughing. The hours to days follow-on changes to the inside surfaces of my GI tract is something akin to a skinned knee oozing serum with lots of bleeding. It feels like a "bore snake" was pulled end to end. That will heal and recover over the period of a week if I maintain a perfect GF diet. I also react to casein in milk. That closes down my throat and makes my nasal passages sting like a bee sting. Same general feeling down the whole GI tract. Food allergies are not fun. They require perpetual vigilance and a fairly limited choice of foods.

Killing the microbiological pathogens with chlorine beats being sick. There is no excuse for adding fluoride. It displaces the iodine from your thyroid hormone and makes your bones brittle via the fluorosis process. Topical application of fluoride in a dentists office that is not swallowed has some limited benefits. The baking industry introduces lots of bromides into your diet via bread additives. There is no value to bromine in the human body. Like fluoride, it competes for binding to your thyroid hormones rendering them inactive.

I am a huge fan of iodine, it’s my new best friend! I never knew how lacking we are in potassium iodine until recently. I grew up on well water and did not develop abnormal conditions until I was living in areas that had only “tap”.

"Perhaps its the fault of Gatorade, that Technicolor concoction of salt, sugar, and water people guzzle to replenish their electrolytes. "

There's no doubt that Gatorade is overpriced -- but, having low electrolytes is no laughing matter. Electrolyte supplements save millions of 3rd world children, suffering from diarrhea, every year (and millions others die).

I know what that feels like. I once had very low electrolytes; and I truly thought I was dying. When I finally figured out what was happening, I took a couple of packets of electrolyte powder, and recovered very quickly. There are cheaper alternatives to Gatorade -- but, if your electrolytes are low, you do need to replenish them. STAT.

So sorry for your illness. We will add you to our Care Group prayer list. There often doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to life sometime. But God says when we get to Heaven it will all make sense.

I’m reminded of a story about two angels who visited a poor farm couple who shared what little food they had and their humble surroundings with them. Their cow who gave them milk and provided a small income to them died during the night. One angel asked another how that could have been allowed to happen. The angel responded that the angel of death had come during the night for the wife but was convinced to take the cow instead. Life is not always what it seems.

May God watch over you.

41
posted on 03/24/2013 5:05:29 AM PDT
by Grams A
(The Sun will rise in the East in the morning and God is still on his throne.)

I am also one of those never drink/smoke/drugs types and I have had off and on bouts of problems all my life. I am in line to see a neurologist about the latest unexplainable things that put me in the ER a couple weeks back. A mind is a terrible thing to waste except in my case, maybe not so much.....

44
posted on 03/24/2013 5:55:04 AM PDT
by wally_bert
(There are no winners in a game of losers. I'm Tommy Joyce, welcome to the Oriental Lounge.)

I have a client that I used to meet with once a month during the dinner hour. Had to quit because we couldnt agree on a restaurant which had exactly the kind of food she thought she needed to survive. She will not eat anything that is not only organically grown but gluten, carbohydrate, fat, salt, sodium, sugar, and who knows what else free. Drank bottled water without ice cubes or lemon because she wasnt sure how/where the lemon had been grown, whether it had been properly washed and, of course, the ice cubes were probably made with water which wasnt filtered.

People like her just wear me out.

It sounds like she has orthorexia. It is an eating disorder characterized by an obsession with eating nothing but "healthy" foods. People with the disorder tend to cut whole food groups out. They do not have a working definition of "healthy", either.

I do not think the disorder is officially recognized, yet, but a definition is fairly well developed. When I first read about it, my reaction was, "Aha!" Because I was raised by a woman with this disorder. When I read expert opinions that orthorexia is not a disorder, but is just anorexia, I want to yell at them--go spend time with my mother and tell me orthorexia is nothing but anorexia! It is not!

There is a danger with orthorexia. It can be deadly, since people cut out so many "unhealthy" foods that they cannot get adequate nutrition. Orthorexic mothers have killed their babies by imposing their pathological food beliefs on them.

46
posted on 03/24/2013 6:35:03 AM PDT
by exDemMom
(Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)

If you wants some serious levels of ions in your water drink pond water.

I’m guessing here a bit, but this marketing stragety is born out of using ion exchange units to clean the water they sell. One problem with deionizers is they tend to make water taste like crap. So water bottlers started added ions back into the water to make it taste normal. At some time they figure this was a good marketing strategy to differentailte their products.

48
posted on 03/24/2013 6:49:35 AM PDT
by Fzob
(In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. Jefferson)

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